Serenity, or achievement?
On the axis: Scope of action · a good life
Is the good of a life the peace of an untroubled soul, or the active achievement of one who transforms the world and leaves a mark on it?
Justification
The root of all unhappiness, Epictetus argues, is to expect one's happiness from things that are not in our power. Hence the opening move of the : sorting our concerns into two classes by the single criterion of mastery, what is wholly up to us (judgments, desires, aversions) and what is not (body, goods, reputation). The is not one thesis among others but the operation that conditions everything that follows: all disturbance arises from having claimed a hold on what eludes us. Where the older Stoics dwelt on cosmic fate, Epictetus brings the division down to the concrete use, here and now, of what is properly mine.
Of things, some are in our power, and others are not.Enchiridion, §1
Enchiridion, §1 · Discourses, I.1
Justification
The good resides exclusively in virtue, that is, in the right use of and of the will: this is Stoic moral perfectionism. A dimension remains, since this virtue is also the path to serenity (), but pleasure is never the criterion.
Discourses, I.29 · Enchiridion, §8
Anchors: Epictetus
leads to: The highest good (Acting or being well-off)